Help with propagating vegetable plants!

It's getting close to spring! Anyone interested in or experienced with propagating vegetable plants? I'll show the "Before" propagating picture in a later post. Let's talk!

Jim Kennard


This picture was taken at a school in the interior highlands of Papua New Guinea, where Dr. Jacob Mittleider increased their food production by a factor of 10, while teaching the native people self-sufficiency and independence. The young man on the left of Mrs. Mittleider is Silas, who was their Yard Boy to pay his way through school. Silas learned his lessons well. He is known today as His Excellency Sir Silas Atapari, Governor General (President) of Papua New Guinea.

This message was edited Mar 3, 2004 8:47 AM

Well, a few have looked anyway. Here's what the folks were growing before! And by using propagation and good nutrition practices, their yield was increased more than 10 times. Fun, Huh!

Jim Kennard

Jim I've got this thread on 'watch'. I'm very interested in this subject, but have never delved into it. Hoping someone else jumps in to start the discussion! :)

Me too. I am very interested and watching the thread.

Is this companion planting? Crop rotation? Don't tell me we have to buy a book to find out! LOL

Propagation entails using plant parts, rather than seeds to grow the next generation of plants. Several benefits include shorter time to harvest, less cost, since the vegetation is already available from the previous harvest, etc.

With potatoes, you cut out a piece of the potato that has an "eye" and plant it. That's propagation. The same thing is done with sweet potatoes, but more often the stems and leaves are used. And propagating tomatoes simply requires cutting off a sucker stem and planting it.

The picture below shows pruning sucker stems from tomatoes, but if you want to propagate them, let them grow bigger before cutting them.

What Dr. Mittleider did in the situation you see above is to take samples of only the best plants growing in the area, plant in greenhouse/nursery conditions, including regular feeding and watering, etc. He continued to feed and water throughout the growing season, and what you see is the result.

By the way, the big ones took only 7 months, whereas the skinny ones had taken 10 1/2 months to grow.

Jim

Cool. This is sooo interesting!

Thanks Anna: Dr. M. was in Papua New Guinea for those pictures. You can look at my project in Madagascar at www.foodforeveryone.org. I also did some propagating - of sweet potatoes, taro, pineapples, and a few tomatoes.

Jim Kennard

The website is very interesting. Please tell us more about the Mittleider method.

Anna:

Through thousands of field trials Dr. Mittleider has developed simple and highly effective methods of growing healthy vegetables virtually anywhere there is some warmth and light. It's sometimes called "the poor man's hydroponic system", but it is not hydroponics - rather it is growing either in containers or in the dirt, using small amounts of natural mineral nutrients and other techniques, such as timely and thoriugh weeding and vertical growing to maximize yields in the least amount of space.

Go to www.foodforeveryone.org and look in the Gardening Techniques section for a comparison between Mittleider Method gardening and traditional gardening.

Jim

Thank you Jim. i will have a look.

Anyone plant potatoes? Seed potatoes are rather expensive, but here's an idea to save money.

Most folks just cut the potato into two or three pieces, and put it into the ground later in the spring. That wastes many "seeds", since a good seed potato will often have a dozen or more eyes. Plus, starting inside in flats or pots will give you a head-start of several weeks on the growing season.

Cut the potato into small pieces, making sure each piece has one "eye". plant the small pieces in 2" or 3" pots or "6-paks" and water with plain water.

As soon as the seedling emerges, begin watering with a dilute "constant feed solution". Good fertilizers to use for that purpose include Peter's Professional Pete Lite, which has all the nutrients, or Miracle Grow, which has most of them.

If you prefer to make your own complete balanced fertilizers, you will find a good formula at www.foodforeveryone.org.

Jim Kennard

We grew some potatoes a few years back from store bought potatoes.

They had gotten soft in the bottom of the bag, and had eye sprouts at least an inch long. DH just carefully cut the potatoes and planted each eye sprout piece. We planted them in a raised bed.

I guess we planted about 10 to 15 pieces, and we got enough potatoes to last most of the following winter.

Vegetative propegation is a great way to get more of what you already have. It works with a lot of different plants.

Your experience shows what can be done. Congrats. However it doesn't always work that well.

One warning on store-bought potatoes - Most are treated with a growth inhibitor, so they won't begin growing as you describe. For this reason, they are seldom a good choice for use as seed potatoes. Of course that's why the seed potatoes are so much more expensive - the growers know you can't use the ones in the grocery store!

Jim Kennard

I read some years back that if you expose the store-bought spuds to light for a few days to a week it will break down the growth inhibitor, Jim.

I've tried it on purpose and "accidentally" (meaning I left the taters on the counter too long instead of putting them in the pantry!).

Being a miser I had no choice but to try it! For example, seed potatoes of Yukon Gold are very expensive (especially thru mail order). However, a five pound bag at our local Winn-Dixie grocery store is often as low as $3.00. Lots of eyes in a bag that size!

Is this chitting a potato?

Last year I cut them, placed them on the counter for 2 days to dry a bit, then planted. I grew a ton of potatoes. In fact, I am still digging them up! LOL!

Or what is chitting?

I like that we can plant regular potatoes from the grocery store. I also grew a key lime seed, and happy to say I've kept it alive. LOL.....

Sue, not sure who you are asking the question to...me? Or Jim and his removing eyes and planting them in 6 packs..

Chitting is basically pre-sprouting the spuds, forcing the eyes to begin growth. When done in diffused light the sprouts will be stronger than when done in darkness. (In darkness the sprouts will be long and leggy and easily broken off. If you can plant those out w/out breaking them off though you will still see good growth and harvest.)

I like to chit spuds to get a quick start...this may only take a week in certain conditions. Other conditions tho you'll see success from 3 weeks to 2 months. Many folks used to do this regularly beginning mid-winter. (Over seas, and perhaps here also, they even sell chitting machines to the bigger operations.)

I'd much prefer chitting to cutting out eyes and planting them as Jim suggested. I'm more into efficiency and less time-consuming techniques that what he described. (In this instance, that is.) To me one of the reasons I grow potatoes is because they are a "low maintenance" crop...basically, chit them (if you like), set them out, walk away from them until it's time to hill them up (when they are 6-8 inches tall). Once they are again up in height you can hill them one more time and from there on just watch them grow! (Of course normal measures apply...if no rain, water them; see bugs? pick em off, etc.)

Thanks Horseshoe and Jim for these interesting lessons! I agree, potatoes are very easy to grow.

I also planted some leftover Horseradish from the fridge. It is growing like gangbusters in a couple of pots.

So if I cut em up first and let the sections dry out in light for a few days and then plant them, they'll do better? Or just set them right out and cover as they grow? I've only been doing potatoes 2 years and had buried the eye sections a few inches deep right away.........I buy the red la sodas, I think I may get them from the grocery store this year....but I have stuck the occasional sprouter from the idaho bag into the garden and gotten smaller idahos....

Howdy Jenks!

I'd suggest if you cut them, let them heal over for a day or so. The cut side will form a thick skin as it dries and will help deter bugs and such from being so attracted to the vulnerable 'meat'.

If you choose to get your spuds from the grocery store, I'd put them in light (indirect light) and watch them...when you see growth around the eyes you know you have something that will produce.

As for them Idaho's....my clay soil won't grow them as big as the store-bought ones get however, were I to amend my soil I'm sure they'd get that size. I grow Kennebecs (white taters) and Red Pontiacs (red skins, white meat) they do excellent in un-amended soil! (Great keepers too!)

I cut the small pieces and put them immediately into the small pots - about 1/2" deep, or if I'm planting them in the soil, I plant them about 1" deep. No hilling is required, and we get excellent yields, just putting them in soil-beds as taught at www.foodforeveryone.org in the Gardening techniques section.

Attached is a picture of some spuds grown this way by a friend in eastern Tenn.

Jim Kennard

I'd like to hear if anyone else has experienced a bumper crop of potatoes by planting the seed stock only one inch under ground. Or maybe you could elaborate on that, Jim.

Potatoes tend form above the seed piece. Planted only one inch won't give them suitable room to grow unless you want marble-size spuds. To get any size on them they would expose themselves above ground, not a good thing.

Jim, are you mulching them or something? Can you explain more?
Thanks.

For what it is worth, I planted potatoes slightly underground one year and mulched with grass clippings and straw. I had the nicest, cleanest potatoes growing out in and under the grass, but above the ground that year. The only problem I had was that I wasn't smart enough to know they would grow that way and until I figured out that they were out away from the plant, I was missing some of them when digging. I went back and low and behold, I had a lot more potatoes than I thought I was going to have. There were several that had been eaten into by bugs too.

One year my mother planted a potato in a garbage can with drainage and just a little soil in the bottom and as the plant grew, she kept adding straw and soil mix. She ended up with some great potatoes from the top clear to the bottom and they were much earlier than mine just planted in the ground.

Brugie, I did that once, too, only I had a dumptruck load of leaves that the city brought me. I mulched the spuds with nothing but leaves, several times as they grew. Those were the nicest clean potatoes! You could even pull back the leaves, reach in and pick some 'new potatoes', then recover with leaves and not disturb the whole plant! (I really wish the city would bring me some more leaves!)

I've grown spuds in a barrel twice now. One time very successfully, another time very small harvest. Have no idea why tho. Pretty fun to experiment tho, isn't it!

What other veggies have you tried thru propagation? Could you do corn this way? This is the way lots of my friends do geraniums of course; leave the plant go dormant and take cuttings about now for new plants. Much bigger and more blooms than seed geraniums and cost is only labour. Could you do a tomatillo this way? What about carrot pieces - will they sprout from the hairy parts? Lots of questions.

Howdy jagunjune! (Brrr...bet it's cold up where you are, right?)

I've never heard of vegetative propagation with corn...only have grown it from seed. However, I have started the seed in cell packs before and easily transplanted them out once they were up and had good root growth!

Carrots won't reproduce by the hairs on them. You'll either have to let them go to seed and fall back into your carrot bed (hmmm, a perpetual carrot plot?) or hand sow the seed each year. For fun tho, instead of throwing the top away from the next carrot you eat, save it! Set it on your kitchen counter in a shallow pot of water or moist potting soil and watch the top re-grow. (It offers you some life and greenery in your house during the cold winter months!) I don't remember ever setting them out in the garden afterwards so can't really say if it will produce a new carrot tho.

However, leeks will! When you cut the roots off your next batch of leeks, leave about an inch or so of white above them. Plant shallowly in either a pot or in the soil and a new leek will grow!

Tomatoes of course can multiply by pulling the suckers and rooting them, thereby giving you new plants for a second crop!

I'm sure we can come up with some other crops also that are easily propagated. Hope this helps!

Potatoes are tubers, and form all along the roots, certainly not just at the seed piece. By preparing the planting area and maintaining moisture we get lots of potatoes, some of them several inches under the soil surface, and some a foot away from the main stem. We also plant close together - 8" apart on both sides of the 12" planting area. We do not apply any mulch or compost, since that often attracts bugs. Rather, we leave the ground clean. The leaves of healthy plants completely cover the ground, so there is no "greening" of any edges of the potatoes that might venture a peak out of the ground.

Regarding propagation of other plants, I have never tried corn, but it would be fun to give it a try with the suckers. I do not predict a high degree of success, but let's try it!

I've never tried tomatillo's either - has anyone else?

Carots will think they are in the second year and will go to seed.

Jim

Jim, the boxed beds your friends grow in must have the perfect loose/friable soil in them, allowing the spuds to grow downward like that. I'm jealous of soil like that! My amended clay soil would never allow an abundant harvest of potatoes without hilling.

(By the way, potatoes actually grow on stolens, not roots. The stolens grow from the main stem above the seed piece. This is why unless you have very loose soil, like Jim's friends do, the spuds will be very close to the surface; the stolens won't be able to move too deeply down.) (I should make a couple boxed beds this year, eh?)

Maybe I should pick up some tomatillo at the market this week and germ the seeds. I'd be willing to experiment with those, too!

Mary I love that garbage can method for the spuds....excellent idea for those of us with limited space!

Horseshoe, love that info about leeks too!

I plan on rooting the suckers of the tomato plants this year.

But I know one thing for sure, I will only grow 1 tomatillo plant, I could not believe the production of the two I had last year. I had so much to share.

Hey hey! Okay-dokey folks, I picked up some tomatillos today to get the seeds from. (Can only hope they are not a hybrid.)

Sue, I supposed I could go look it up but can you tell me how long to maturity it took your tomatillos? (And by the way, what do you prefer to do with them?)

As for leeks, I will be setting out 100+ in a few weeks (weather permitting). Can't get enuff of 'em! Wanna know why?...

...{Cut leeks in half lengthwise. Rinse well. Lay them side by side, cut side up, in a baking pan and dot with butter, sprinkle w/black pepper. Add a tad bit of water to the pan, cover with foil and bake around 350 for 20 minutes or so.

After that time, pull off the foil, put fresh-grated parmesan cheese (not the stuff in the green shakey can!) on the leeks and put under the broiler! Broil till the cheese turns dark brown but not quite black. Using a spatula lay several pieces on your plate next to whatever else your having (goes great with grilled/broiled/baked salmon!) and guard your plate! Pig out! You'll always wish you had more!

Caution: Never leave the finished product unguarded; fellow diners have been known to finish theirs first and then "help" get rid of any more that are laying around.}

ohmigoodness, that sounds so good Horseshoe! My husband loves onions any way. Raw mostly. He likes to snack on green onions. He would adore this recipe! I never grow enough leeks! I have to change that.

Tomatillos: They grew in height faster, but the fruit matured right around the same time as the tomatoes. I kept terrible records last year. I plan to do better this time around.

And what do we do with them? Well besides unloading them on neighbors and co-workers, we made a TON of salsa and canned it. I have two jars left. :)

I'm sure there are many more ways to use them. We just love salsa so much, we make many different varieties.

Shoe... your recipe for leeks sounds yummy! I use mine in many dishes and love them all. When I get settled I'll send you my recipe for pork "stew" with leeks. It's a winner, too!

I always plant leeks, shallots and garlic... too expensive in the stores and so cheap to grow.

Sue, I hope to see your tomatillo salsa recipe in the Recipe Forum this summer! Okay??

darius, hope you are settling in soon! Am hoping/praying you get your place in time to plant this year! Pullin for you!

Shoe, elaborate on this leaf and garbage can potato growing.... sounds like something I'd love to try!!

Hey shoe its been down right balmy here this week. I ran twice in shorts - its actually been above 0 a couple of times.

Oh and Sue don't cut down to one tomatillo or your crop will be zero. they need a buddy for pollination. I eat them like tomatoes; warm off the plant. also use them whereever other folk would use cucumber - cause I'm not a big cucumber fan. Fresh corn tomatillo and hot pepper relish is one of my favourites.

Melissa...basically it's done as Brugie described above. You can use a barrel, a trash can, even wire fencing making a circle. I've even used car tires before!

Put your compost and/or soil mix in your container a foot or so deep (if that much), put in a couple taters. As they grow add either more soil (if you have that much) or use leaves, straw, whatever, and fill the container but always leaving the top 8 inches or so of the plant sticking out the top. At maturity time, hopefully you'll have spuds all thru-out the container.

When using tires, start out with one, fill it with your soil, plant spuds. As they grow, lay on another tire, fill it with soil or mulch, etc...repeat with more tires. The one year I used this method it turned out to be a wet year and the ants decided living in my "high rise" was very much to their liking and pretty much took over my spud plants that year. No fun!

For any of the these methods I use a long-maturing variety. They seems more willing to keep on growing than the early varieties do.

jagunjune...you went out running in SHORTS at temps just above 0??? Mercy! My feet are pretty tough but I believe if I put my skinny bedsheet-white legs in a pair of shorts at those temps my knee-caps would fall off! Brrrr....

Thanks for the tomatillo tips. I'm gonna start my seeds this week.

In hot dry climates when you do the above make sure to water well so the lower part of the plant gets its share of water.

I went four tires once with good yield and have seen this done in huge plastic bags that you pull up as you fill them.

Potatoes can be grown in pure sand if you have enough water and money to fertilize them. Years ago a couple of Ag students from Wash State U grew two or so acres that way as an experiment and got tremendous tonnage and they were 98 percent seed certified both statstics unheard of at the time
Ernie

Shoe, we canucks are tough but not that tough. Remember my zero is 32F. But I guarantee that those bedsheet white parts will be rosy red after a mile or so (LOL)

About regrowing the leeks - I have not had real good success with leeks in the past. What tricks do you use to increase the proportion of white part - which is the only part really worthing eating (in my humble opinion). Do you use a shade row or hill them or what?

ernie, haven't heard of the bags but it sounds pretty cool to me. This opens up lots of possibilities and different ways to grow.

Jagunjune...forgot you were dealing w/Celsius, but still...no shorts for me at that temp! I'd still be barefoot tho (unless the snow is very deep). (At that point I'm like a cat with scotch tape attached to the bottom of its feet.)

As for leeks....I set them out either in a trench, or holes that are 4-6 inches deep. (These are plants, not seeds.) Put them in up to their lower leaf. As they grow, pull up the soil to them. I only pull it up to their lower leaves each time cus I find that if you throw the dirt on them higher up, the dirt goes down in-between the leaves and gets trapped. That makes it tedious to clean them after harvest. If you're careful w/your hilling you'll have clean leeks!

To encourage good growth, and long stalks, I like to use either a bloodmeal or other high nitrogen food when preparing the ground and/or planting out. From then on I prefer to foliar feed with fish emulsion or the like.
Hope this helps you. Ain't many things in the garden better than leeks! ('Cept maters.) (And beans.) (Oh yeh, and purple peppers.) (Oh yeh, again, and lemon cukes.) (Oh yeh...and, well, ♫ never mind....♫)

shoe my sight on it

Its all good and better than the store Ernie